As a parenting expert and author, I'm fortunate enough to work with some of the premiere universities and hospitals currently conducting research on this very subject. So shouldn't I be inoculated against this type of unwelcome infiltration in my own home? Um, hell no. No parent is.

What have we gained? Speed of communication. And for this generation, speed is everything. What have we lost? Closeness, voice contact, the intimate communication of actually knowing what a person is feeling, and that can only come from presence.

Perhaps it's time to establish some basic "Rules of Civility" for technological use. These are circumstances in which you will absolutely, positively damage your relationships if you are on your phone.

It started small. My vision was a little blurry after working on the computer for a few hours. Then, I started to get headaches in the late afternoon. A few weeks later I noticed that I was having trouble reading street signs. Sound familiar?

We need time in the stillness of nature to become fully engaged with the real world where our senses can be reawakened, pulled out from under the rubble of beeps and alerts and reunited with the elements that are so much of who we are. We need to unplug.

Isaac Julien, a groundbreaking filmmaker and member of the Creative Caribbean Network has proved once more to be the supreme capturer of cultural identities and narrator of seemingly undisclosed histories.

We need to work on ways to limit problematic technology use -- while finding ways to enhance its positive effects. Simply terrorizing people about the internet making us dumber, crueler and less attentive won't work.